Council passes amendment to restrict short-term lodging in residential neighborhoods

LACONIA — City councilors approved amending the zoning ordinance around short-term rentals, including excluding them in residential neighborhoods, during their meeting Monday night.

Property owners located within the residential zone who already operate short-term rentals legally won’t be impacted. Those who own property within the residential zone would be required to seek a variance through the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment in order to operate a short-term lodging.

The amendment was approved by councilors 5-1, with Ward 6 Councilor Mike Conant opposed.

The vote came following a long, drawn-out process of revisions and public hearings, punctuated by frequent and impassioned comments from the public. On Monday night, those interjections were front and center. 

Carol Varney, of Edgewater Avenue, is one such citizen who submitted comments several times. On Monday, in advocating for the amendment’s passage, Varney commended the council and the city planning board for their work in drafting an amended ordinance.

“This is not the demise of short-term rentals in the City of Laconia, and it’s also not the ‘sky is falling’ situation that some people make it out to be,” she said. “One of the things that was revealed at the planning board meeting was that, as far as the residential zones, we’re talking about 20% of the property in Laconia. That leaves 80% of our city open to short-term rentals by right, or by exception.”

Councilors, during their meeting on Feb. 9, scheduled a public hearing on the change, which at that time included redefining short-term lodging as less than 28 consecutive days, and not permitting use in the residential single-family zoning district. That public hearing was Feb. 23. Following the hearing, councilors voted to amend the proposed language, and referred it back to the planning board for review.

The planning board reviewed the proposed language at their meeting on March 3. Members of that board approved the amended language 4-1, and referred the new ordinance back to council, whose members took the matter up again Monday night. 

Mayor Mike Bordes has repeatedly expressed opposition to the exclusion of the residential zone by right.

“I have neighbors down the block that rely — heavily rely — on short-term rentals in order to pay their property taxes,” Bordes said.

“It’s unacceptable, we cannot be doing an entire zone. It should be a case-by-case basis,” he said. “We can’t tell private property owners what they can and can’t do on their own private property. This is government overreach in its entirety, and it’s just not right, and it’s going to cause issues.”  

Resident Douglas Robinson, of Cotton Hill Road, who has expressed opposition to the change numerous times, warned councilors that litigation is expensive, and the city will have to foot the bill.  

“We sent this to Mitchell Group for them to review. Laura Spector-Morgan, the attorney over there, she did write about 95% of it,” Planning Director Rob Mora said. “That was in reference to the court cases that had come down, and all the changes in law that had happened, including the occupancy, so it’s been very thoroughly reviewed with legal to make sure we’re in compliance with state law."

Conant was the lone councilor in opposition. 

“We’ve talked about this endlessly, and I’m just going to stick by the fact that the ordinance, as written by the planning board and when it first came here to council, was just as it is with the exception of excluding [the] residential zone,” he said. “Residential zone still would’ve needed a special exception, and they still would’ve needed to be owner-occupied, so nobody’s putting in a hotel or a motel, they have to live in that home, and they can only rent it for a maximum of 120 days."

Bordes said he’s received far more public input against the amendments than in favor. 

“The thing that makes Laconia special, as any small town, city, [is] that you have different zoning districts,” Ward 5 resident Brett Beliveau said. “If someone wants to move to the city and they want to be near the nightlife, they can. They can go into the commercial resort areas. If they want a quiet life, they tend to look toward the residential.

“I think you lose some of that variety if you start allowing things that were meant for certain zones into all zones.”